Neural Correlates of Multisensory Perceptual Learning

By Albert R. Powers, Matthew A Hevey, Mark T. Wallace. 2012

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The brain's ability to bind incoming auditory and visual stimuli depends critically on the temporal structure of this information. Specifically, there exists a temporal window of audiovisual integration within which stimuli are highly likely to be perceived as part of the same environmental event. Several studies have described the temporal bounds of this window, but few have investigated its malleability. Recently, our laboratory has demonstrated that a perceptual training paradigm is capable of eliciting a 40% narrowing in the width of this window that is stable for at least 1 week after cessation of training. In the current study, we sought to reveal the neural substrates of these changes. Eleven human subjects completed an audiovisual simultaneity judgment training paradigm, immediately before and after which they performed the same task during an event-related 3T fMRI session. The posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS) and areas of auditory and visual cortex exhibited robust BOLD decreases following training, and resting state and effective connectivity analyses revealed significant increases in coupling among these cortices after training. These results provide the first evidence of the neural correlates underlying changes in multisensory temporal binding likely representing the substrate for a multisensory temporal binding window.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Sensory Systems

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Citations in the corpus

Multisensory Processes: A Balancing Act across the Lifespan (2016, positive): “Using classic perceptual plasticity-based approaches, it has been found that training on a simple task involving the judgment of the relative timing of an auditory and visual stimulus results in a substantial improvement in the ability to judge their timing [50,51].”
The Construct of the Multisensory Temporal Binding Window and its Dysregulation in Developmental Disabilities (2014, background): “An additional piece of evidence in support of a central role for the pSTS in multisensory temporal function is that following perceptual training that narrows the TBW, activity changes as indexed by fMRI are seen in a cortical network centered on the pSTS (Powers et al., 2012) (Fig.”
The COGs (context, object, and goals) in multisensory processing (2016, background): “The temporal binding window for simple AV pairings can be narrowed by 40 % following as little as 1 h of training of AV simultaneity judgements with feedback, with the previously discussed network involving STC and low-level sensory cortices being activated by the same stimuli less strongly post-tra”